]]>The Grand Col Ferret is located in the Val de Bagnes, Wallis, Switzerland and is around 2570m high.

My impatient self decided that June was the perfect time for a yearly vacation day, but above 2400m high, snow is still present here and there. Because I did this trip on bike, it was a no go for me. Thus, I stopped at 2400 and explored another place.

The start, adding a better note after 1h30 hour of highway and overcrowded roads.

Where I stopped. I considered for a while going on foot, but bike shoes are not recommanded for snow walk.

Instead, I explored this place.

The sky had the decency to wait until I was in car before unleashing its fury of rain, storm and the like.

]]>How to backup our precious digital photography? At which cost? How safe are our data? Even if this subject has been covered – at least – a thousands of time, I would like to share how I backup my digital pictures. My aim is simply to share how I do it, so it might give some of you ideas. It is definitely not a state of art.

Backup policy

My backup policy, to save space on my notebook harddrive, is to delete all pictures from past years. For example, at the end of 2014, I deleted (after backup) all the 2014 files. So, I only have the current year on my harddrive.

The dark spot is Lightroom catalog which has to be rebuilt, since the pictures have moved.

External harddrive

An external harddrive is my favorite place for backup. Because I’m an hopeless geek and – thanks to my job – have seen so many drives being corrupted or breaking down over the years, that I backup my data on three different disks.

The first disk only purpose is to backup the whole computer. The second drive backups the pictures only and is an USB drive, thus connected to one computer at a time, preferably only the same. Mac OSX and Windows don’t mix well, I have seen whole disk contents being flush out in very mysterious ways simply by connecting a drive from a Mac to Window, or the other way around. The third drive is a NAS, which backups the pictures as well, but is accessible on the local network, allowing the pictures to be shared by several computers.

Having two harddrives spare me the cold sweat when one of the them breaks down or decides that a self format after a power surge is a good idea.

Cloud

Now what if the house burns or a burglar decides that the harddrives are the most precious things to steal? Even if these are the least likely to happen, having the data in the cloud might be a good idea, specially on the move where we would like to backup our pictures at someplace else than the notebook harddrive. One could also put the home NAS in a DMZ and access it online, but it requires some network configuration skills and is less reliable. What if the NAS isn’t reachable after a power surge?

So, I backup the pictures in two different clouds, because I have found out clouds are even less reliable than harddrives. Just forget to pay your monthly/annually fee and God knows what will happen to your data.

The first cloud I use is Dropbox with their 9.99€/month for 1T. In Dropbox, I only store landscapes pictures, no personal or family ones. The reasons being is that Dropbox has no encryption on the server side (Dropbox employees can look at the data in plain) and the other is because of US policies which have basically completely removed the individual of its human rights, almost anyone from a US government could access the data without the individual consent.

But Dropbox being the cheaper so far, it is my favorite choice.

The other cloud solution I’m using is Owncloud on a dedicated server. One can rent a dedicated server as low as 10€/month, the performances are poor but more than adequate for Owncloud.

The advantage of having one own dedicated cloud solution is the complete control over the data; they can be encrypted, and we’re the only one who can see them. Plus, it’s 2T available for 10€. Of course, managing a dedicated server is not for everyone, but there are host providers who offers Owncloud out of the box solution, even for dedicated servers. The upload is also much faster than *all* (I insist) the cloud solutions that I tested. By faster, I mean 100 times faster, depending on your own upload bandwidth. The only reason I’m not using Owncloud as the only cloud backup solution is that the Owncloud server has no backup and would cost far more that the current Dropbox plus Owncloud solution.

]]>This year in Switzerland we are gifted (at least from my perspective) of a beautiful winter.

It snows a lot, around 40-60cm in the area I live (720m high) and more is to come. Needless to say, I giggle each time new snowfalls are forecast.

On the photography side, I felt drowned to black and white as the landscape is often in monochrome.

It’s really completely different than colors and I think that every photographer should start to shoot in BW as one has to focus on composition and tonal balance primary, without being distracted by the sometimes beautiful colors.

Now my favorite quote of the day “Do not seek what you yearn for, but seek the source of the yearning.”, from Adyashanti.

]]>Paying a visit to a dear spot, before a hopefuly snowy winter settles down.

A cloudy sky is a very good weather condition to capture waterscapes.

This day, I wanted to pay a special attention to composition, something I feel needs to be improved. I took only two prime lenses.

But things didn’t go as planned.

A beautiful waterfall caught my attention, unfortunately, it wasn’t reachable (well maybe with four legs). Something I learned once at the bottom of an aprupt 30meters high pit.

The sounds of the river were very enchanting, I never noticed that there was so many different sounds! At each step, there was a new one!

As I was completely alone, the forest got me. After a short time, the same scenario happened; I walk grinning, not even knowing why, stop to look around without apparent reason, completely lose track of time and after a while forget to take pictures.

Edit:

A few days later, I spoted another place on the map and obviously paid a visit to it.

It was cold and the sun was very low, albeit it was mid-afternoon.

Once again, I came home refreshed and joyful for no reasons. Maybe I should live in the forest..

]]>After many weeks living under the fog with little to no sun, paying a visit to snowy mountains was mandatory.

The Great St-Bernard pass is closed during the winter, as its highest point is above 2450 meters. One can spend the night at the hospice, if reservations have been made in advance, as the place is frequently visited during the winter.

I didn’t expect so much snow at my starting point, around 1900 meters high, so I had only taken the snowshoes with me and regretted later.

The weather was clear, with a perfect blue sky, fresh powder and cool temperatures, but not uncomfortable. A perfect day.

A perturbation coming from west was forecast for midday and as the weather can change abruptly at these heights, I payed a special attention to the sky. Being with snowshoes also meant that I needed more time to climb down than with skis.

This early in the season, there are very few people, a sharp contrast with heart of the winter.

Clouds started to form on the summits and covered the sun more and more. I was reaching the altitude of 2300, around the 2/3 of the climb and pondered my options and this is where I regretted not having taken the snowboard, because I would have climbed a bit higher with it.

And enjoyed fresh powder.

During my early 20’s I spent each summer snowboarding on glaciers, around 3000 meters high and I learned form this period that the weather can change very quickly. I still fondly remember one particular summer in early August, where a storm caught us. The temperatures dropped to -10, -30 Celsius with the wind. As skiers, we were equipped with warm clothes, but the tourists, mostly Indian were dressed with sleeveless tunic and wearing sandals. The waiting for the cabin (which was delayed because of the winds) was quite epic. I was surprised many didn’t morphed into penguins.

The same happened this day, minus the storm. Within minutes, the sky was completely covered by clouds and this signaled for me the time to go down.

A few minutes later, it was “white day”, something skiers don’t really like. It means that everything looks flat, there is no contrast at all, one has to ski by feeling alone and be watchful for edges.

Because I was in such an enchanted mood, the usually overcrowded highways were almost empty. Two days later, I’m still enjoying the climb in my sore muscles.

This is our second holidays out of the country in 11 years, as we waited until the children were old enough to be autonomous. They don’t need diapers, can swim, wash themselves, don’t wake up every hour or so at night, can spend 7 hours traveling without being glued to an i-something or/and whining. In a nutshell, it was worth waiting.

The reason I’m writing this entry is to relate a funny event at the airport, on the way back.

The airport, Malaga, is located in Spain. Spain is within the European community. I’m living in Switzerland and this marvelous country is out of the European zone, albeit in the center of western Europe..

All that to say that I was eligible for tax refund, taxes in Spain being around 21% and only 8% in Switzerland. Little did I know how funny things would turn out.

To help you visualize the whole situation, when I bought the item, I already was in the duty free zone, thus after the security check.

Naively, when I asked for a tax refund, I thought that the guy would simply deduce the tax on the bill. No way. I was charged full price. Then the vendor started to fill a paper for refund.

Malaga isn’t the biggest airport, but like many airports, going from point A to point B might take a surprisingly high amount of time. Plus, there are some places, which are poorly indicated.

The cash refund desk being one of them.

After having waited 15 minutes in line, the operator behind the glass told me in the most unfriendly way that I need the custom stamp on the paper.

Where do you think the custom is?

Before the security check!! Aye.

I spotted a security guy and asked if I could cross the gates again. Only to discover that the customs are as badly indicated as the cash desk.

A little more line waiting and after having presented my birth certificate once more, I had the miraculous stamp from the customs.

In the meanwhile, I received a phone call from my husband, telling me that the flight was boarding and..I was the one with the children ID cards.

I rushed back to the guy who let me crossed the security check and asked if I could pass through the line for disabled people (there was no one), as my flight was boarding.

No way.

I don’t know how it is for the rest of Spain, but in this area, the only spoken language is Spanish. Trying to argue about anything is pointless unless you’re a native speaker. I was thus rushed back in line.

20 minutes more to go through the security check for the second time.

I finally got into the plane, but didn’t even gave a glance at the cash desk.

So, I learned my lesson of the day; forget about tax refunds in airports.

One more funny detail; I can send my tax refund paper to Spain customs, but they will only send money to a Spain based bank account..

The Cabane Chanrion is located in the Val de Bagne, Switzerland. I had already made a trip there last year.

The day before I was hooked in a bad vibe, and from my previous experience, I knew some hindrance would be on the way.

This time, the bike was working perfectly, or so I thought. Never underestimate the Universe’power.

It started right before I entered the car in the morning. A flat tire. And a tire that usually is mounted in less than 5 minutes took well 20! I was gradually dreading the next of the day.

The Universe made me pay.

A ridiculous high number of cars on every single roads I took. Deviations which almost sent me for a world tour. Tourists with giant 4×4 and driving as fast as a bike uphill.

Talking about the bike, after exactly 210 meters, the rear derailleur had hiccup again. I swear I checked that one!

10 more minutes to fix it and I deliberately tried to blank my mind.

Oh, did I mention that the GPS device which had wipe out its maps and that I had carefully synchronized again with the computer, granted me with a “cannot unlock the maps” message when I started it? I was lost in the Groenland again. As far as the GPS was concerned.

Fortunately, the gorgeous scenery was a most welcomed distraction.

This time I was alone, save a few oblivious hikers and I chose a pace which would allow me to do the last climb without my tongue drooling on the road.

Of course, I used every occasion to stop and take a picture. There was snow on the summits and I was half expected to meet it.

The more I climbed, the brisker the temperatures, thus shortening the breaks significantly.

Eventually, the Cabane Chanrion was in sight.

It was beautiful, cold and once again I was surrounded by fat groundhogs. Curiously, the more time I spend in the mountains, the closer the groundhogs. Maybe I’ll be able to touch one the next time.

As my vibrations had now improved, the ride back home was miraculously void of sleepy tourists (or they would mysteriously evaporate when I arrive) and the traffic was as fluid as one can expect in this overcrowded country.